


The Life and Death of Joseph Kavinsky

by static_abyss



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Audio Format: M4B, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Character Study, Child Neglect, Drug Addiction, Gen, Guns, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Internalized Homophobia, Knives, M/M, Minor Character Death, POV Second Person, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 20-30 Minutes, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-09 22:29:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4366619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/static_abyss/pseuds/static_abyss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your life goes like this: you are a kid, and then you're still just a kid. And now you're older, and you are <em>nothing</em> but a dead kid. </p><p>This is your tragedy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Life and Death of Joseph Kavinsky

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank araline for being amazing and reading and recording things for me before she even knew what I was writing. Thanks so much for trusting me, and for the opportunity to work with you. I had so much fun creating this for you and I will definitely be doing this challenge again in the future. Also thanks to m--emrys @ tumblr for reading this for me and for being supportive. Also thanks to M, who reads everything and is a champion beta. All remaining mistakes are my own. 
> 
> Please see the bottom for more notes on the warnings for this fic.

**Download:** [MP3](http://podfic.jinjurly.com/audfiles/242015082017.zip) (24 MB) | [M4B](http://podfic.jinjurly.com/audfiles/242015082018.zip) (24 MB)

**Length:** 29:43

  


This is your tragedy.

  


* * *

  


Life is a set of choices and for you, it is about questionable choice after questionable choice, until you are so far over your line, you can't even see it anymore.

  


* * *

  


Your first mistake is wanting a father.

The kids at school talk about their fathers when you're nearby, and the movies your mother puts on TV show fathers tucking their sons in, high fiving them after a football game, or ruffling their hair after an argument.

"Why are they always like that?" you ask your mother once.

Both of you sit on the couch, but neither of you looks at the other while the movie plays. The apartment smells like burning plants, and the smoke detector batteries are on the coffee table in front of you. The movie is in Bulgarian, with subtitles, so the volume is low, and you know your mother can hear you.

You hear her exhale and feel the smoke on your face. She stretches out her legs in front of her, and her voice is steady enough that it sets you on edge.

"Why is who like what?" you mother asks.

You nod at the TV, where the dad hugs his son. 

Your mother is quiet for so long, you turn to look at her, even though you don't want to. You aren't surprised to see her crying.

"Fathers always love their children," she says finally.

She never looks at you when she says it. But you are ten, so you believe her, which is why, when you dream of a forest with whispering trees, you forget to ask for love. 

When you get older, you will realize you were a fool.

Now, you are ten, and you dream yourself a father who is tough and has a grin that looks like danger. Your mother says you are Bulgarian, so you think your father is, too. 

You love him because you are his son and that's what sons do. You do not notice the way his teeth are too sharp, or how his hands are calloused. There is nothing soft about your father's face, but you swear he looks at you the way the dad's in the movies look at their sons. In your eyes, your father is perfect, so when he hits you the first time, you aren't ready.

You aren't ready the second or third time, either, not even when you wake up with your father's gun at your temple. You are when he hits your mother, though. 

You planned him, and on her good days, your mother helped. He lives only because you let him, and it saddens you to think that it took you this long to realize the truth. He is _your_ creation. You remind him of this one day, while he sleeps.

*

Guns are loud, and you can't imagine your small hands holding them properly. You know the razor sharp edges of your father's smile though, and knives are not much different. 

You stab him in the neck and watch him shake on his bed. The red on the sheets looks like his handprint on your mother's face, and you wish you felt something besides relief. 

But you are ten, and your relief is short lived. You dream yourself a better father and you are afraid. This second father takes care of the body for you. He doesn't ask questions. He rarely even looks at you. This second father doesn't hurt you and there is someone to take care of your mother. 

You think your father is some kind of mobster, because when you dream him to life, you imagine Al Capone from middle school history. But you don't know and you don't ask, because he leaves you alone, and being by yourself is something you're used to.

  


* * *

  


Trying to help your mother is your second choice.

You never apologize to your mother, because she starts drinking. You are ten, and then you are eleven, and you come home from school to find your mother passed out on the living room couch, the TV playing static. Sometimes, you come home and she's still conscious, her eyes red, her beautiful dark hair slipping out of it's band. If it's a good day, she'll even look at you and smile. But it's rarely a decent day, much less a good day.

You turn twelve and you think this is your fault, the way your mother is falling apart, and how your father only comes home to drop money on the kitchen table, or to make your mother's parking tickets go away.

"Help me," your mother says to you one day.

You thought the prescription drugs were bad, back when you were six and she lost you in the park near your school. Then she starts smoking weed, and that's okay, because she doesn't lose you anymore, and she stops crying at night. Alcohol is new, you are twelve, and she's looking at you with wide hurt eyes. She is your mother, so you love her.

"What do you need?" you whisper, afraid that someone will hear and take you away. 

She looks at you, and you want to see your mother in the blown pupils and desperate face in front of you. You can maybe remember what her laugh sounds like when she cups your face in her hands.

"Sweet boy," she says. 

You dream a forest that night, a bottle of alcohol sitting in the center of a clearing. You hide between the tree trunks, watching. You don't want to get caught. You wait, and when nothing comes, you run for the clearing. Your fingers are barely around the neck of the bottle when you wake to hands on your shoulder, shaking you.

"Give it to me," your mother says.

You give her the green bottle in your hands, and watch as she pops off the top. She takes a drink, and her face breaks into a smile. She calls you "sweet boy" again, and her laughter is like tinkling bells. 

You find out later that your father has stopped giving her money.

"He hates me," she tells you, when she finishes the fifth bottle you dream for her. 

She drinks them slow, because you make sure to bring back the strong stuff. It makes her sleep faster, and you come home from school to your mother passed out on the living room floor more often than before. It's all right though, because on the days when she's awake, she even eats with you.

You don't know who cooks, but you know your father must have someone who comes by when you're at school. There's no other explanation for why there's always hot food waiting for you, or why the house is so clean. You know your mother doesn't know how to cook and you've never seen her clean anything in her life. 

You are grateful, in an overwhelming way, that there is someone to put food on your table and clean your room. Which is why you know your father cannot possibly hate your mother. You think it's more than either of you deserve.

"He won't give me any money," your mother says.

She sounds close to tears, and you are torn, because you love your mother, and your father loves you, so he wouldn't hurt your mother. 

"He doesn't love me," she insists, and then she takes your hand. "You're the only one who loves me, Joseph."

You've never been Joseph to her, and hearing your name from her makes it sound wrong. 

"What do you need?" you ask her.

She looks at you with wide brown eyes, and blown pupils, and you wish you were six and lost in the park near your school.

  


* * *

  


You choose to say yes when she asks for drugs.

It starts out small.

"Just some weed," she tells you.

She's sitting on the living room couch, and you're next to her. The smoke detector batteries are on the table in front of you, but there are no cigarettes and there's no movie on TV. You are thirteen and you are so good at stealing different kinds of liquor for your mother. It's the same every time: you sleep, you see a clearing, and you take what's there before whatever is in the forest can take you.

You learn to read your mother's mood by the type of alcohol she's drinking. You know when to stay away, and when to ask her to help with your math homework. But you know, always, to keep her away from the money your father leaves in your bedroom drawer. You are in charge of the house when he is not there. 

Your father is away a lot, but when he comes by, your mother is on her best behavior. You don't know if it's because she respects your father, or if she's still scared of the first one. 

You are. 

But you don't say this aloud, and you don't let yourself think it. You have a new father, and your mother is as content as you ever remember her being.

You dream her the weed because she is happy. But it's not right. It tastes weird, and she makes you try again, and again, and again, until you finally get it right. She calls you "sweet boy" and laughs, like she has never been happier in her life. You are thirteen years old, and your first father beat her, so you owe her this, because you are the only one who loves her. 

She asks for more, obviously, but you are thirteen and you haven't learned how addictions work. You won't ever learn. 

So you dream your mother more drugs. Some of them make her erratic, fist flailing, hair pulling, out of control. Those you never dream for her again, not even after you tell your father the truth about the broken antiques, and he walks away as though it's nothing. 

You dream ecstasy and cocaine and leave them out for your father to see and for your mother to ingest. Your father says nothing, so you dream yourself some weed, and dream your mother a little pink pill that should make her calm and fun, the way you think she must have been before she had you. 

Your father says nothing when he catches you smoking weed in your room, but you think it's because your mother is trying to kiss him. It's the first time you've seen her try, and you think maybe this means you can finally be a family. But your father turns away from you, and your mother tosses you a little plastic bag of white powder and winks at you on her way out of your room.

You sit on your bed, thirteen, and with the world at your feet in a little plastic bag.

  


* * *

  


When you are fourteen, you start counting the things you have that the other kids don't. 

You have a father who makes sure you're never in trouble, and you have a mom who loves you.

You live in Hunterdon County, but your mother raised you in the New Jersey cities, where the kids speak in slang and you can't be out after it gets dark. You have money now, and a father to shove in the faces of the kids you go to school with. You think people are afraid of your father, because no one stops you when you walk out of your first store with a bag of chips. 

You take more things, after that. Packs of soda to share with the kids in your school, who have dads that tell them off for hanging out with you. You steal cigarettes once, just jump right over the counter in the store, and take them, while the kids, who you are starting to think are your friends, watch. They all cheer when you toss the pack at them, and like always, your father says nothing, and you don't get in trouble.

Sometimes you like to climb into girls' bedrooms, because it helps shut up a part of you that's becoming louder the longer you hang out with the guys from school. You let parents catch you sometimes, when things get boring and your skin starts itching. Your father still says nothing, and when your mother looks like she's going to complain, you dream her better drugs. 

You have friends and girlfriends to choose from. 

You give them a little purple plastic bag of weed every Monday, and they follow you around all week wanting more. The more you give them, the more the girls start pressing their breasts against your arms. But you never look at them too long, and instead, you start stealing from your dream forest again, bigger and brighter pills. 

"What's the red one for?" one of the guys at school asks you.

"It's to make you straight, Prokopenko," you say. 

Everyone assumes you're being mean, and you're glad, because you don't think you can explain why you dream a pill to turn people straight. You carry that pill everywhere, even with you when you dream better drugs. 

You don't think to charge people until Prokopenko starts paying you. He gives you a watch in exchange for a pound of cheap weed. A silver ring for a single blue pill that's almost like ecstasy. Almost, because you make things worse, even if you think you're making them better. You get a gold chain for the good weed and a couple of pink pills, so you keep it. You give the rest away to the girls who still let you into their rooms.

You start a collection of jewelry and money from different parts of the world. Sometimes, girls give you head for drugs, and sometimes, the guys let you keep their cars for a week. You have a line of twelve cars on your street at one point, and when your father comes home that night, he looks you over and says,

"Nice cars."

You try dreaming cars and can't. So you try again, and can't. And eventually, you get bored and go back to drugs, and through it all, the little red pill is always in your pocket.

You keep counting what you have, and what the other kids don't, and the list grows the more drugs you dream for them, and the more things they give you.

You have a best friend too, which you think counts, because Prokopenko is richer than you, and you are the only one he hangs out with. You have a rich best friend who follows you home after class one day. You are fourteen and the town is scared of your father, so you know no one is going to hurt you. Even if they did, you don't think you could really feel pain at this point. 

You let Prokopenko into your house, but you make sure to stop to kiss you mother's forehead and move her to the living room couch, so she can sleep off whatever she's on. You take Prokopenko to the garage, because he's never going to see your bedroom. You toss him a bag of cocaine, and wait for him to take a hit before you take yours.

You have a best friend named Prokopenko who you're pretty sure is gay, and if he is, you're going to have to kill him.

"You're straight, right?" you ask. "Cuz I don't want any of that gay shit in my mom's house."

"Why do you need a pill to turn you straight?" Prokopenko asks you.

You glare at him and the muscles of his arms. He wants you to say something, but you just lean back against your father's car and palm the red pill in your pocket 

"You know you can't actually pick a sexuality, right?" Prokopenko asks.

He moves closer. You know because you can count the freckles on his perfect face. You want to tear him apart with your teeth when you feel his hands on your arms. You almost tell him, too, almost punch him in his mouth, almost break the window of your father's favorite car with Prokopenko's face.

"Don't tell me what to do, faggot" you say, and you wonder if he can tell how much you want to get your hands around his throat.

He shrugs, and you shrug. Then you swallow the red pill, and you let him fuck you in the back of your father's favorite car.

After, you realize that there are no pills to turn you straight. So you go back to dreaming and stealing, because if you ever stop you're going to have to kill yourself.

By the time your father catches you bent over your desk in your bedroom, you have a list. You have a father who makes sure you never get in trouble, a mother who loves you, friends and girlfriends to choose from, a house in a good neighborhood, money, good clothes, better drugs, and a rich best friend.

  


* * *

  


You choose to turn fifteen in Henrietta, in a house that looks just like all the other houses around it. You turn fifteen with a black eye that your father gives you, and a pair of white sunglasses to cover it. 

"God hates fags, Joseph," he sneers at you. "God hates _you_."

You don't know if your father actually hates you, or if it's possible that he's just saying what you want him to say. It doesn't matter, in any case, because you don't believe in God. You just believe that the gold chain around your neck is going to choke you one day, and that the drugs in your pockets are going to save you. You think your mother believes in the same things, but she's passed out in the new living room, so you can't ask her.

  


* * *

  


You choose to dream yourself your own Prokopenko. 

You keep him, even though his shoulders are uneven, and his ears aren't quite right. He's nothing close to the handsome boy who fucked you after school, but you feel that this new face suits him. You think he finally looks on the outside like he does on the inside.

  


* * *

  


In Henrietta, you choose to dream a pill that makes the dream stealing easier, and because you want to, it also kills you. Or you think it kills you. You can never be sure, because you've never actually died, but you think it works.

You hope it kills you.

  


* * *

  


You choose not to see that Henrietta will kill you.

Your father enrolls you at Aglionby Academy, because that's where all the hungry rich kids go, and you're an expert at hungry rich kids.

Everyone at school says you're trash, and everyone out of it, says you're an asshole. They make their judgment without knowing you, so you're even more of an asshole on purpose. 

You know they hate you. All of them, from the high school kids who empty their pockets for what you have to give them, to the guys who follow you around and watch your back. The first group hates you for how hungry you make them. The second, for how much you give them. 

You are the bad guy.

This is a truth you have long ago accepted.

You hate them right back though, every single one of them. But especially the ones who are rude to their mothers. You hate Dick Gansey because you hear the way he talks to his sister on the phone, once. 

"Don't be a prick, Dick," you say to him that day.

He raises his handsome head and blinks at you. "Who are you?" he asks.

You grin at the kid next to him.

"I'm your worst nightmare," you say, and you mean it.

You mean it more than you can possible know at the time.

  


* * *

  


You are sixteen when Ronan Lynch tries to kill himself. 

This is the age you realize he is _just like you_. But it is also the age where you see him bleeding out on the ground and decide to walk away. You think death suits people like him.

"Like how?" Prokopenko asks you.

"Fags who lust after Dicks, if you know what I mean," you say, but you don't look Prokopenko in the eyes, even though you know he isn't the same one.

Prokopenko doesn't get it, but that's all right. You're used to people not getting you by now.

  


* * *

  


Your last mistake is thinking Ronan Lynch is anything like you. 

When you are seventeen, you see Ronan Lynch's razor sharp smile and feel the violence in his hands. You feel his fist in your face, and you know he can tear you apart if he ever wants to. This same year, you lose to him in a race and he calls you Bulgarian trash. 

It's funny, because you aren't even sure if you're Bulgarian anymore. 

*

The day your father hit you, you dreamt a gun that could kill anything with one shot, and the day you save Ronan Lynch's life, you fire it for the first time. Your hands shake when you fire the gun, and it should only take one bullet. But you fire five more times, because nothing in this world is sure. Nothing has ever worked out for you. Nothing in this world is worth your trust.

Not even your own gun.

Ronan Lynch goes home with you, and you give him the drugs in your pockets, and you watch him drink beer after beer. When you can't take it anymore, you take a green pill, and then another, and you get so high, you put your hands on him, even though you tell yourself you don't swing that way. 

You put your hands on a boy who can't defend himself, and send a picture to Gansey, because you think it's funny. 

When he leaves you the next morning, you breathe a sigh of relief. Because this is your truth: Ronan Lynch reminds you of your first father and you are afraid of him. But this is also your truth: you have never wanted anyone quite the same way.

  


* * *

  


Your last choice is not a mistake, not in your eyes. Your very last choice isn't even a choice at all. 

You know in a way, that you've been headed here all your life. From the moment your mother lost you in the park near your home, you know that you will always end up here. 

You choose to die.

You've always known you weren't going to be good, but you could have been decent. You have no redemption though, not since you first looked at Ronan Lynch and wanted him for yourself. 

When you can't have Ronan Lynch, you take the next best thing. You take his heart and lock it in the trunk of your car. Matthew screams, so you gag him. Then you drive, because there's a party and you have a surprise for Ronan Lynch.

You said once, that you are Henrietta's worst nightmare, but what you really mean is that you are Ronan Lynch's. You prove it with fire and wings, and the terrible monster that has lived in your head for as long as you can remember. You stand on top of your car, and you wait to see the world burn with you. Fire and ash are all they deserve, every single one of them, but especially Ronan Lynch. 

You are doing them a favor.

 _You_ are a benevolent god.

You stand in front of the world and watch your last creation come for you. You can move. You even hear Ronan yelling at you to move. But this is your car and that is your dragon, and you have made this mess. Your head hurts and your heart is too loud in your chest, and this is your last choice. The dragon that is going to kill you is yours.

 _Move_.

But you don't.

You just stand in the center of your world and remember.

You remember that you had guidelines, once. Back when you first started stealing, you promised not to take more than you needed. Somewhere along the way, you lost track of what it was you needed and what it was you wanted. The two seem so tied up, in a way.

You have no guidelines, at the end. To be honest, you never really have any to begin with.

Your life goes like this: you are a kid, and then you're still just a kid. And now you're older, and you're nothing but a dead kid.

  


* * *

  


This is a truth you never learned: your past explains your actions, but does not excuse them.

You were a liar when you were alive. You never wanted Ronan Lynch, not that way. What you wanted was to show yourself that you weren't afraid of your father. What you always wanted was to prove to yourself that you weren't afraid of living. Your truth is, you were. But then you die, and now, you aren't much of anything.

  


* * *

  


You only told the truth once in your life, and you told that truth to Ronan Lynch. It was on the night of your last race with him, when you rolled up next to him and stared at him from over the top of your sunglasses. He was in Gansey's orange Camaro, and his smile was dangerous and so sharp you could have cut yourself on it. 

"Brought the whole family," Ronan Lynch said to you.

You smiled at him and you said. "You know me. I just hate to be alone."

**Author's Note:**

> The non-con is in reference to Kavinsky's canon inappropriate touching of Ronan, when Ronan is passed out. There is no explicit rape of any kind, but as I do consider that scene to be obviously without Ronan's consent, I tagged it. 
> 
> I also just want to note that I do not in any way condone Kavinsky's actions. I think he is an amazing character, obviously, since I wrote this fic about him. But I want to acknowledge that he is a shitty person, and that none of the things he did in the canon were ok.


End file.
